


pilgrim

by janewestin



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Moving In Together, Short, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-04-25 09:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janewestin/pseuds/janewestin
Summary: snapshots after a breakup.(set after s4e7 'we're done')
Relationships: Mike Ross/Harvey Specter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 156





	pilgrim

He doesn’t mean for it to happen. Has every intention of checking into the Kimpton hotel that’s two blocks from Harvey’s building. But the cab drops him off, and he starts walking, and the next thing he knows he’s at Harvey’s front door.

“You look like you just robbed a Burlington Coat Factory,” Harvey says, taking in Mike’s disheveled clothes and beat-up roller bag, and his words cut but his tone doesn’t. He stands aside to let Mike in. “That bad?” 

“Worse,” Mike says, and heads straight to the guest room. Closes the door so hard it’s almost a slam. And presses the heels of his hands into his eyes to blot out the afterimage of Harvey’s face, eyes dark and forehead wrinkled with concern.

*

She doesn’t look at him the next day. Speaks to him in clipped, awkward sentences, her gaze hitting somewhere just below his chin. 

Harvey gives him orders like he’d never left. Brusque and irritable, and Mike is busy enough that for ten or fifteen minutes, he forgets the stricken shame in Rachel’s eyes. 

*

On his third day back, there’s a key on his desk.

*

“Hey.” 

Mike feels his shoulders pull tight. It’s been a week; he knows he can’t keep locking himself in the guest room immediately after work. He doesn’t live here, after all.

He takes a step backward, turns his head just enough that he can see Harvey in his peripheral vision. “Yeah.”

“It’s Friday. Quit hiding in there.” He’s rolling up his sleeves, tossing his tie on the kitchen counter. “Godfather, part two.”

Mike hesitates for a moment, then turns the rest of the way. “Yeah,” he says again. “Sure.”

*

It doesn’t happen all at once. No shouting, nothing thrown. Six conversations. Tears, and not just hers. 

It takes four days to divide their things, another six for her to move out completely. The apartment is all his, now, but he can’t bring himself to go back.

*

After a month, he leaves eight hundred dollars in cash on the island before he leaves for work. When he gets home that evening, he finds it under a glass on his nightstand.

*

“You’re working too hard.”

Mike looks at the clock. Eight-forty-one. “It’s not that late.”

The corners of Harvey’s dark eyes crinkle with a not-smile. “It is when we have Le Cirque at nine.”

Mike shakes his head. “I have to have this to Jessica by eight AM.”

“The Tate brief? I thought that was Louis’s.”

“It was, but—” Mike doesn’t want to tell Harvey how many files had been stacked on his desk that morning. 

But Harvey’s in the room now, one hand reaching, and abruptly Mike’s laptop is snapping closed. 

“Louis,” he says, “has his own goddamn associate.”

*

He winds up working on the Tate brief anyway, even though it’s after eleven by the time they get back to Harvey’s condo and he’s had two glasses of scotch (and, to Harvey’s utter horror, a dessert cocktail called a Talking Monkey). 

He hears the shower shut off as he’s finishing up, and a few minutes later Harvey wanders to the kitchen. Dark blue joggers. Water droplets on his bare shoulders.

“Go to bed,” he mumbles on his way back to his room, Pellegrino in hand. Mike’s not sure why, but his cheeks are burning.

*

Butternut squash (easy). Spaghetti (easy, unless you make Gram’s sauce from scratch, which he only does twice because it takes all day). Stuffed peppers (moderately difficult; he always uses too many breadcrumbs). Acorn squash (easy). Shepherd’s pie (too runny, and he gives up after the third attempt). Harvey gets home too late to eat with him, but Mike doesn’t mind.

*

He works on the couch most evenings now, files slipping over each other beneath his bare feet, highlighters wedged between the cushions. 

“You mind not trashing my living room?” Harvey says mildly as he passes, and then his hand is on Mike’s head. 

It’s over before Mike can even really register what’s happened. Slide of Harvey’s palm across his scalp, the slight catch of his hair between two of Harvey’s fingers. Not a playful tousle. 

He looks up, mouth half-open, but Harvey’s door is already closed.

*

Mike falls asleep while they’re watching Platoon.

He felt himself drifting, he should have just gone to bed, but Harvey had turned the fire on and yeah, the couch is hideously modern but it’s just so _ comfortable. _His head tips.

He wakes up drooling into a decorative pillow, the warm weight of Harvey’s faux fur throw tucked around his shoulders. The couch is empty. The television is off, the living room shadowed and silver. 

Moving to the bedroom would be the responsible choice. He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep.

*

On a Friday in October, Rachel changes into a black dress in the fiftieth-floor Pearson-Specter ladies’ room. She walks out wearing red lipstick and heels two inches higher than the ones she wore to work. It’s been four months, but _ Christ _, it hurts.

They watch Friday Night Fights on the couch that evening and the scotch burns Mike’s throat. When he feels Harvey’s hand on the back of his neck, warm and solid, the burn reaches his eyes. 

*

A week before Thanksgiving, Mike sneaks out for a hot dog and finds Harvey at the curb outside the office, leaning on the hood of a Bentley Continental. 

“What’s this?” Mike says, eyebrows raised.

Harvey shrugs. He’s wearing a black wool coat and leather gloves and, improbably, a bright red scarf. “Just felt like a break. You coming?”

“Uh...” Mike glances up at the building. He has at least three more hours of work left, but— “Sure.”

The Bentley has a tiptronic transmission, which is why Harvey’s hand ends up resting on Mike’s knee most of the way out of Manhattan.

*

“Goddamnit, Mike, is it _ so hard _ to throw the container away?” Harvey sets the empty bottle of coffee creamer on the counter so emphatically that a few droplets of white splash out and land on the back of Mike’s hand.

Mike looks at them, then up at Harvey. Lifts his hand to his mouth and licks the creamer away. Then he reaches out, takes the hem of Harvey’s T-shirt, and pulls. 

No resistance at all. Harvey closes the distance between them with two easy steps. His gaze is sharp, bright. No discernible expression on his face.

Mike’s hand tightens on the shirt. He leans. Stretches up, deliberate, and presses his lips firmly to Harvey’s. Harvey kisses back at once, and when Mike pulls back, heart pounding, he sees that Harvey’s eyes are twinkling.

“Huh,” he says, a tiny smile curving his lips. He puts a hand on Mike’s waist and pulls him closer. “Took you long enough.”


End file.
